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Sacking turned into a spectacle

A storm
in a teacup is often stirred by people who sail in paper boats.

Known
for his pathological hatred for dissent and brute bulldozing skills finely
honed during his over 12 year long tenure as chief minister of Gujarat, Prime Minister
Narendra Modi’s sacking of Mizoram Governor, Dr. Kamla Beniwal is nothing more
than the proverbial storm in the political teacup. Neither constitutionally mandated
nor Supreme Court approved-change of governments do not necessarily imply
change of Governors-it goes on by precedents. The meaning however lies in the
manner, and through it, the message that the sacking seeks to convey.

Beniwal
who took over as Governor of Gujarat in 2009 and served till recently when she
was transferred to Mizoram was the only hurdle in Modi’s steamrolling ways as
he sought to bypass constitutional norms. He had already snuffed out all
dissent within the Gujarat BJP, through skilful use of veteran LK Advani,
sending old stalwarts packing like former union minister Kashiram Rana, veteran
Keshubhai Patel, Late Haren Pandya, Baroda strongman Nalin Bhatt and north
Gujarat leader AK Patel. Another Jan Sangh-BJP veteran, Shankersinh Vaghela,
hailing from RSS stock had already been deftly forced out in 1996 and straight
into the waiting hands of the Congress. Alas, Advani realized it only after he
was strung out to dry when he had already been pushed out of the prime
ministerial sweepstakes in the run up to the 2014 general elections!

Beniwal’s
ouster is political revenge, classic Modi
style. And it was done with transparent intent to turn the sacking into a
spectacle. With just a few months left for her tenure to end, she was first
transferred to Mizoram giving an impression that the prime minister who had
been grace personified at the beginning of his tenure wanted the 87 year old
lady out of Gujarat and had so moved her to the distant North-East where she
could fade away into isolation. The entire process of her transfer and sacking
is seen by seasoned observers as a
political move designed to set an example for others to take note of.

Frail of
frame, feisty Beniwal had stood upto Modi’s belligerence in his fiefdom all
along, except that the scales titled heavily in favour of the latter when an
overpowering 2014 mandate brought him into the driver’s seat in Delhi.

The official
reason cited for the decision to send
her packing was that she had misused the Governor’s office during her tenure in
Gujarat to make unauthorized air travels to various places including to her
home state of Rajasthan at the expense of the state exchequer. Raj Bhavan
records were cited to make the point that of the 63 times the state aircraft was
used to travel out of Gujarat between 2011 and 2014, 51 trips were to Jaipur
from where she hails.

It is
interesting to note that during this entire period, it was Modi who was the
chief minister of the state and while he had launched a virtual crusade against
her, even holding public meetings, he never brought this unauthorized use to
public notice. Afterall the ‘misuse’ of the state plane could not have gone
unnoticed to a chief minister known to keep sharp tabs on the doings of his own
ministers and bureaucrats. Modi reveled in throwing tidbits of their ‘activities’
in official even personal meetings to flaunt his reach and prying ability.

After Sangh
seniors like Sunder Singh Bhandari and thereafter quiet Kailashpati Mishra and
sedate and sweet talking congressman Nawal Kishore Sharma as Governors in
Gujarat, Beniwal proved a different kettle of fish altogether.

Theirs
was an uneasy relationship. Modi brooked no intereference. Wherever hindered by
rules or laws he sought to use his brute majority in the Gujarat Vidhan Sabha
to do what he wanted. And invariably always he ran up against the
unsurmountable stonewall that Beniwal proved.

The appointment
of the Lokayukta was just one of many examples in numerous bouts of sparring between
the two that spilled into overtime, even replays. She, however, invariably got
the better of him in most judicial joustings leaving Modi further piqued.

Modi ran
the bulk of his over decade long chief ministerial tenure without a Lokayukta,
stalling it at every point and turn despite the fact that the appointment body
was headed by the Chief Justice of the High Court. When Beniwal finally
appointment retired justice R.A. Mehta, the Modi government promptly knocked the
doors of the judiciary and kept losing right upto the Supreme Court. Even the
appeal before the apex court failed and so did a further attempt. In the
meantime, Modi sought to change the entire process of appointment of the
Lokayukta and had a Bill passed in the Vidhan
Sabha which gave the chief minister primacy of place in the appointment of
a person empowered to probe him. The effort floundered at the alter of Beniwal
who finally rejected it in 2013. The appointment of vice-chancellors again had
the two at loggerheads since the Governor was the Chancellor in the case of
most of them. In some of the new educational institutions of excellence that the
Modi government created, the Governor’s role was virtually penciled out.

She was
also instrumental in registering a corruption case against then fisheries
minister Purshottam Solanki. Her sacking is not merely meant to be a signal to
recalcitrant, UPA appointee governors to throw-in the towel, but also within
his own party and without, including the bureaucracy and even the judiciary
(Remember Gopal Subramaniam) to take note and fall in line.

Modi’s
politics is one of command, control and total allegiance. And the stage for it
is in the process of being set. The hard politics unfolding on the national
stage in Delhi remains a frame by frame copy of his politics in Gujarat. There is
unmistakable continuity. The velvet gloves are off and the iron fist is showing!.

http://www.orissapost.com/epaper/110814/p11.htm

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R.K. Misra is a field journalist with over forty years of experience working for some of the top news publications in India and abroad. Presently the Roving editor of The Free Press Journal of Mumbai, he is also the State Correspondent of the New York based international news agency, Associated Press (AP), news dailies Hitavada of Nagpur, Daily Post of Chandigarh and Outlook magazine of Delhi , to name a few. Beginning his professional career with The Times of India in Ahmedabad, he has worked as Senior Assistant Editor with Probe India and it’s sister hindi publication ‘Maya’ in Delhi and as Special Correspondent and later Roving Editor of The Pioneer and the Indo-Asian News Service (IANS). Specialising in cross-country coverage of conflict areas like Punjab and Kashmir at the height of militancy , he has also done stints for the Gulf News of Dubai and the Arab News of Saudi Arabia besides the Tribune of Chandigarh, and Vijay Times of Bangalore. His specialization, however remains, Gujarat. He is presently based in Gandhinagar, the state capital of Gujarat.